Flatter Meat Means More Space! Wait… WHAT?

Okay, so this isn’t going to be mind-blowing. But for those of you who are like me and purchase large quantities of meat to freeze when it’s on sale, this little tidbit might help you out.

Confession: I have been a 30 Day Shopper for quite some time now. What is that? Well, it means I go grocery shopping in 3 different stores for 30 days worth of meals all in ONE day.

That’s just the shopping part. I then have to haul it all inside of the house and put it away. I’m honestly not sure which part I hate most.

Yes I do, all of it.

I’m just not a shopper – but I know a good deal when I see one. And I usually freeze it.

When it comes to buying meat, I’m no fool. I know that the savings is in buying it at a decent sale price in the massive “big-buy” type packaging and breaking it up myself at home.

Over time, though, and with very limited freezer space, I came to hate this method. I was literally shoving ziploc bags of meat into my freezer with a ram bar. Or my shoulder, whatever.

Regardless, my freezer looked like it was on crack and about to vomit out a bag of ground beef at any moment. Ever have a bag of rock hard chicken thighs fall on your toe? Exactly.

And then, AHA! I had my usual “duh” moment. Treat the freezer like a puzzle. Just like my OCD loving husband does when we’re packing a month’s worth of crap into the van for a weekend getaway.

Flatten the meat!

No, no, easy girl. Don’t actually pound it to death. Just lay it flat when piling it into your freezer bags. Or if it’s something you can easily pat down like ground beef, turkey or chicken, flatten it so that it looks like a square or rectangle.

No bulging clumpy bags of meat in my fridge ever again.

The best part is that once the meat freezes, you can then put the bags in bins in your freezer upright and fit all sorts of things in there! FYI: bins are great for flat meat, otherwise some of them slip through the shelf cracks. That’s a whole other set of problems…

So, again, not mind-blowing or life-altering stuff here folks. But if you’re a Mega Meat Freezer like myself, you will appreciate this little tip.